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Office of Public Affairs

Wheelchair Unbound: Overcoming Life’s smallest challenges

National Veterans Wheelchair Games

Ever stub your toe on an uneven sidewalk or slam your knuckles on a door too narrow? How about walking uphill on terrain in loose gravel? Frustrating, annoying and aggravating. Yes, all of that. Now try doing it everyday in a wheelchair. Since 2003, Veteran Pete Moore from Boston, Mass., has been navigating through life’s most commonplace challenges with zeal.

“The world simply isn’t designed for us,” said Moore, an aerospace engineer. “Since my motorcycle accident, I’ve had to have a new mind-set.”

Part of that mind-set includes thinking and planning hours ahead.

“If I want to go to a restaurant, I call to see if they are handicap accessible,” said Moore, “but I really have to spell out my needs. People think they are, but sometimes not.”

The simplest of daily routines, like getting up and going to work, often extend a wheelchair Veteran’s day by several hours.

“I start work at 8:00 o’clock in the morning,” said Moore. “I have a 20-minute commute. I get up at 5:30 a.m. each morning.”

Moore enjoys coming to the Games each year because ‘it’s a great opportunity to be around other people in wheelchairs.’ He’s an active participant in one of the toughest competitions wheelchairs can offer—the slalom. Negotiating a wheelchair slalom course is a vigorous challenge wrought with inclines, change in terrain, gravel and sand pits; and opening and closing of doors.

“All things that are simple everyday challenges,” reminds Moore, who also competes in wheelchair basketball for the love of that sport.

Added his father, John Moore, “I have an antique colonial, and he couldn’t live in my house.”

Despite the challenges, Moore looks forward to the Games so he can compete against the course and be part of a team. It’s something his father wouldn’t miss for the world.

“I am blown away,” said John Moore. “My eyes were completely opened after his injury and, I tell ya, I’m as proud as anybody can be about a son.”